ANYONE WHO IS NOT AGAINST US IS FOR US

XXVI SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Mark 9:38-43,45,47-48

In any group and in any movement, the members are always tempted to surround themselves with walls, so that they exclude everybody who does not belong to them. There are the ones within, who share the same values and, therefore, have the same rights and the ones without, who cannot be recognised and accepted, because they do not belong to the group. These outsiders are demonised in such a way that we cannot find good in them and we cannot grant them the right to do good. It is as if we have the monopoly of the truth, of goodness and of salvation. We are guided by a tribalist mentality, in which those who do not belong to our tribe (our group) are seen as our enemies, who must be ignored, despised and even fought.

This Sunday’s gospel shows the apostles having a similar attitude. John approached Jesus and told him: “Master, we saw a man who is not one of us casting out devils in your name; and because he was not one of us we tried to stop him” (Mk 9:38). Because he was “not one of us”, he could not do anything good and he should be stopped, when he tried. Certainly, the apostles thought that they should protect their identity, that is, what makes them different and worthy of recognition. Jesus would not have any of that: “You must not stop him: no one who works a miracle in my name is likely to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us” (Mk 9:39-40). We must recognise goodness wherever we find it. In any culture and in any religion, we can find people who do good and who allow themselves to be guided by the Spirit of God.

This Sunday’s gospel deals with another topic - a very important topic, which has become extremely relevant in our times, mainly these last times. Mark presents a saying from Jesus about scandal and abuse, mainly abuse of the “little ones”. 

Reading the daily papers, listening to the radio, watching tv or searching the internet, we find a nearly daily menu of news, commentaries and talks about sex scandals in the Church. For too long, the people involved in the sexual abuse of those entrusted to them have gone not only unpunished but even protected by those in higher authority. Instead of protecting the vulnerable being abused, the perpetrators were protected and their crimes were covered up. In this way, the poison was being spread, giving the idea that the ones doing so were untouchable. Surely, the perpetrators of child sexual abuse are sinners who need salvation like all sinners. However, salvation is given only to those who recognise their sin, ask for forgiveness and engage themselves to walk on the road of conversion. If we just cover the dung that is hidden, it will cause everything to get rotten and nauseating.

All of us are sinners and are in need of conversion, but there are certain things that should never be found among those who felt the call to be shepherds of God’s people. That’s why Jesus used very harsh words, saying:

“But anyone who is an obstacle to bring down one of these little ones who have faith would be better thrown into the sea with a great millstone round his neck” (Mk 9:42).

When a big scandal took place in Corinth, Paul was quick to give the punishment, expelling the man from the community (1 Cor 5:1-5). Later on, when he showed repentance, Paul accepted him back. However, our main concern should be always to protect the ones who are being abused and cannot protect themselves. And crimes must be treated as crimes. As Christians, we are called to make penance for all the sinners and to pray for their conversion. We must examine as well the kind of people we accept in the seminaries and who are admitted to the priesthood.

Jesus advises each one of us to be strict with himself/ herself in order to follow the demands of the Gospel. We must stay or throw away whatever leads us to abandon our commitment to the Gospel and to Jesus Christ so that we remain faithful to Jesus’ way.

TO BE THE SERVANT OF ALL

XXV SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - James 3:16-4:3

Throughout the history of humankind, wars have been always there. It seems that people are not able to live without fighting, moved by a strong desire to destroy the others, whom they see as enemies. We may ask ourselves why is it like that. The apostle James gives a straightforward answer: 

“Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Isn’t it precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves? You want something and you haven’t got it; so you are prepared to kill. You have an ambition that you cannot satisfy; so you fight to get your way by force” (James 4:1-2)

We are moved by jealousy and ambition, and “Wherever you find jealousy and ambition, you find disharmony, and wicked things of every kind being done” (James 3:16). We cannot see someone who is better off than us, as if those have stolen from us, and then we want to reclaim it and get it back, even by force. If the other does not give up willingly, we are ready to silence him, so that we will no more be confronted by him. We feel threatened by the others and, in order to overcome that fear, we get rid of the threatener. Since the beginning, it has been like that. Cain considered his brother to be better off than him. Then, his jealousy and envy became hatred and he couldn’t stop worrying about that; instead of a brother, he started seeing an enemy that should be destroyed. And so he killed him.

We do not accept ourselves with our limitations and then, in order to measure how we are faring, we compare ourselves to others and blame them for our shortcomings. Like Cain, we make ourselves the victims and react against the aggressor. In the end, Cain was the only aggressor and he stopped at nothing to get rid of his brother.

We are in need of the wisdom that comes from God, the one that “makes for peace, and is kindly and considerate; it is full of compassion and shows itself by doing good; nor is there any trace of partiality or hypocrisy in it” (James 3:17).

We may think that the Church is or should be immune from enmity and infighting, but is not so. And this Sunday’s gospel puts it very clearly. On their journey through Galilee, the apostles, unwilling to understand and to accept Jesus’ prophecy of his impending death, started quarrelling about who would take the first places: “they had been arguing which of them was the greatest”. Within the Church, there is as much ambition as in the world and this ambition brings all kinds of infighting, creating factions, which are ready to use any means to obtain influence and power. If they cannot get it, they are ready to betray or to go into war. There are people who see themselves in danger and are ready to destroy their supposed enemy. The desires and the passions within ourselves make us blind to our faults, while wide opening our eyes to the shortcomings of the others.

Jesus has a completely different attitude and presents us with a different way of life: “If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all” (Mk 9:35).

JESUS, THE SERVANT OF YAHWEH

XXIV SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Mark 8:27-35

Whenever we meet someone for the first time, the question comes naturally: Who are you? When the answer is not enough, we go on asking: Where do you live? What do you do? And we expect an answer which will help us to know and understand the other person so that we can relate each other.

Surrounded by his disciples, Jesus inverted the question, asking them: “What do people say about me? Who do they say I am?” There is always a variety of opinions about those living among us and those opinions may distract us and lead us to the wrong conclusions. We may be easily carried away by the common opinion or the politically correct, which turns out to be very incorrect. Each one of us must find the truth for himself and form his own opinion. That’s why Jesus asked a direct question: “But you, who do you say I am?”

And Jesus’ question reverberates through the ages, reaching our own times. The opinions about Jesus are the most diverse. However, Jesus demands a personal answer to his question and so he goes on repeating it time and again: Who do you say I am?

Peter was quick with his answer: You are the Christ. And we learnt the same answer through the catechism. It is a quick and easy answer. And the whole Christian tradition tells us the same answer. It is part of our faith. We all know that Jesus is the Christ (Messiah), the Son of God, who came to save the world. However, what is the impact on our lives of this memorised quick and short answer?

We may be like Peter, who gave the right answer but had a very wrong understanding of that same answer. Peter represents the disciple who is committed, sincere and full of enthusiasm, while at the same time being delusional. He had very wrong ideas about the Messiah and from those ideas, he got very wrong expectations.  In spite of big crowds following him, Jesus was never a populist and never used deception to get or to keep the approval of the masses. He did not hide the difficulties which they would encounter in following him. Yes, he was the Messiah, but not a glorious, wealthy and powerful Messiah. Jesus presented himself as the Servant of Yahweh, announced by Isaiah, who accepted rejection, persecution and suffering for his people. He is the faithful servant, who has his life founded on the bedrock of God’s Word. In spite of facing suffering and death, he is “untouched by the insults”, keeping his trust in God, sure that he will “not be shamed” (Is 50:7).

Being the Servant of Yahweh, Jesus speaks openly of his impending death. However, that is beyond comprehension and Peter reacted immediately, trying to dissuade Jesus from such fateful outcome. Jesus’ answer to Peter’s intervention can be considered as shocking: “Get behind me, Satan! Because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.” Peter is the obtuse disciple who thinks that he knows better than his master. His ideas of the Messiah are not different from the proposals the devil made to Jesus in the desert.

Jesus’ way of salvation passes through suffering and death and there is no way to avoid them. 

“If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” (Mc 8:34-35).

DO NOT DISCRIMINATE IN THE LITURGICAL ASSEMBLY

XXIII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - James 2:1-5

In his letter, St. James speaks about discrimination in the liturgical assembly, that is, to differentiate people and the treatment given to them according to their wealth or their social status. Such an attitude is an insult to the poor, who were the object of God’s preference. Discrimination uses double standards and the one who discriminates sets himself as judge of the ones who are put aside, considering them as unworthy. In the liturgical assembly, all of us are brothers and sisters and deserve equal treatment.

Nowadays, the fight against all kinds of inequality is part of the politically correct, since all inequality is seen as exploitation and oppression. Gender equality is demanded at all levels and minority groups, such as gays or transgender, come to the forefront, claiming to be oppressed and imposing their demands for equal treatment in all spheres of life. Whoever questions that is considered as an enemy that should be opposed and destroyed. In the fight for gender equality, the politically correct affirms that men and women are not different at all. If we perceive ourselves as different, that is due to social constraint and not to biology. Whoever feels to be a man or a woman should be treated as such (even if that perception does not correspond to the biological set up of the body) and nobody can infringe on their right to be accepted as such. This gender ideology mixes up reality with dreams, accepting the dreams as overriding reality. However, reality will always end up imposing itself, proving that the dreams are just delusions.

Surely, there is equality of being and of dignity: men and women are made in the image of God. Both of them are human beings with the same dignity and the same rights, with the same call to salvation and the same hope for eternal life. Everybody deserves respect and, in the same situation, everybody must be treated in the same manner. However, we do not do ourselves a service by denying the physical and biological differences which are there for everybody to see, and which have an impact on the way we feel and behave. A minority, even though they have the same rights and deserve the same respect, cannot force the majority to feel and behave like them.

As we walk along the path of life, so many times tussled around in such a way that we lose balance and direction, we must keep hope, because God walks by our side:

“Say to all faint hearts,

‘Courage! Do not be afraid.

Look, your God is coming,

vengeance is coming,

the retribution of God;

he is coming to save you.” - Is 35:4

PURE AND UNSPOILT RELIGION

XXII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23

The gospel presents the Pharisees and some scribes quarrelling with Jesus on account of his disciples because they did not the tradition of washing their hands before eating. In Zambia, people wash their hands before and after a meal. It is a question of good manners and mainly of hygiene, which has no religious significance. It was not so for the Jews. Going for their daily tasks, they would be in contact with a great variety of people, many of whom did not keep the rules of purity. So their washing was for purification. This is the reason why they questioned Jesus, giving him the opportunity to challenge them and to point out the futility of that external purification. There is always the danger of reducing religion to the keeping of rituals, which give an appearance of holiness, in spite of not touching the heart and not leading to conversion.

The second reading presents the answer to a question that arises from all the three readings: what is pure and unspoilt religion? There are people who see religion and faith as being the opposite of each other. For them, religion is the human attempt at being justified by their actions, while faith is a total reliance on God, recognising that we are justified by his grace. And so they uphold faith as paramount while considering religion as a vain attempt at salvation. However, it seems that St. James, in his letter, did not see things in that way. Religion refers to establish a relationship with God, which is always a gift of his grace that implies and demands an attitude and a certain type of behaviour. Faith demands that we answer God’s call and that we remain committed to an attitude of listening and answering throughout our lives. 

In the second reading, St. James stresses what is essential: 

1. Listen to God’s word, accept and submit to it; 
2. put it into practice (“and not just listen to it and deceive yourselves.” - James 1:22)
3. pay attention to all those who suffer and come to their help;
4. “keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world” (James 1:27).

In the first reading, Moses teaches the people to keep God’s commandments, if they want to have life. We are continuously being contaminated by the wisdom of the world, which presents power, wealth, glory and pleasure as the greatest values and the easiest and quickest way for a life full of happiness. However, the ways of the world are treacherous and full of lies.

In the gospel, answering the Pharisees, Jesus presents the false values and attitudes that spoil and soil our hearts: “For it is from within, from men’s hearts, that evil intentions emerge: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within and make a man unclean” (Mk 7:21-23).

Psalm 15 presents essential attitudes needed to be accepted in the presence of the Lord:

Lord, who shall dwell on your holy mountain?

He who walks without fault;

he who acts with justice

and speaks the truth from his heart;

he who does not slander with his tongue.

He who does no wrong to his brother,

who casts no slur on his neighbour,

who holds the godless in disdain,

but honours those who fear the Lord.

He who keeps his pledge, come what may;

who takes no interest on a loan

and accepts no bribes against the innocent.

Such a man will stand firm for ever.